Girls give 'Straight Talk' on scoliosis

By Beth WhitehouseNewsday

September 30, 2013 12:01 AM

Elizabeth Ocello, 11, left, and Morgan Pozolante both wear braces to correct scoliosis. The friends met through the Curvy Girls Long Island chapter which offers support to girls with scoliosis. They are shown on September 5, 2013, in Commack, New York. (Randee Daddona/Newsday/MCT)Newsday

By Beth WhitehouseNewsday

September 30, 2013 12:01 AM

MELVILLE, N.Y. -- A suit of armor. A boa constrictor holding its prey. A turtle shell. A medieval harness.

That's how nine young Long Islanders with scoliosis -- a condition that causes their spines to grow curved instead of straight -- describe the back braces they've been forced to wear in a new book called "Straight Talk With the Curvy Girls: Scoliosis -- Brace Yourself for What You Need to Know."

Tween and teen girls who have scoliosis wear braces for 16 to 23 hours a day for several years during middle and high school -- while sleeping, at school, at sleep-away camp, during extracurricular activities, on dates. The braces make them feel like football linebackers at a time when they'd rather look like head cheerleaders. The appliance is meant to stop their curves from advancing as they grow, but sometimes even when they comply with the edict, they still wind up needing spinal surgery.

In "Straight Talk," the girls bare their souls in first-person essays about moving from dismay and wanting to "rip this thing off and burn it" to accepting their plight and, instead of trying to keep their braces secret, urging their friends to rap on their "abs of steel."

"When I was diagnosed, I felt like my body betrayed me. I didn't know anybody else who had scoliosis, so I felt totally alone," says one of the writers, Rachel Mulvaney, of Mount Sinai, who began wearing a brace in fifth grade. She recalls people calling her "brace freak" and said kids didn't want to sit next to her because they mistakenly thought scoliosis was contagious.

Mulvaney, 19, is now a University of Rhode Island freshman and finished with treatment. She says she's hoping the book helps girls worldwide.

In addition to the nine memoirs, the girls' mothers wrote about what it's been like to deal with their daughters' emotional and physical issues. A second section offers fashion tips for brace wearers.